We spin black dimes down
****** halls where
we went white with
rage it splintered our
spines we found them outside
our backs and burnt fingers
backward on busted hands and
handled the dead meat
it was us, fresh brown and cooked
we slid to the floor saddled
with our selves and sat
unsilent in sleep sung
tunes that took our tears
tight and turned them into
sweat I swear I thought He
said that we were holy but we
leave tracks and footprints just
the same and snap
with terrible teeth the taste
of apples still bitter
in our throats, howling and holy
howling and holy

If I painted an apple
would you call it a worm
and if my bed sneezed
and blew a hole in the night
would it be my fault for sleeping
If I drank raw pride
until I was sick with it
would you just stand behind
the red tape and point
until the green pooled in my frozen feet
and made a statue out of me
for you to throw used tissues at
and revisit as a bird
If I was an alligator
I think you’d want
me to stay a baby
or be a mouse instead
so I stayed underwater
like a thing that was dead
until water became sand,
then stone, now grass

Ahoy! The ship has landed

It started out as a drip
and then it became a faucet
and then it became a leak
then finally, a sewer,
then finally, a lake.

I found your net it was
right by mine
where we left them wet
I soaked my head in gasoline
and set fire to the house I
never looked back
to see if you were surprised

I felt the bark under my new hand
and I felt the trees stop growing
acres of wasteland denied

Cleaning out the drains I had
fingers under my skin
that the world saw but I didn’t

Hope is water on the floor
a cup filled with glass
a vessel in itself

Empty bottles in the rabid winter sun
a dangerous cue;
the sometimes somber
melody of exacting light
blisters my nonchalant
parade everyday
is Sunday sipping the oily
fuel of bad things
that come
at night

I regret
all the flowers I sent you
in my thoughts and I
regret every time
I acted like
a gentleman

every beast with long hair lies
I will be
forever lost in the stairwell
everything that thinks it’s
gentle is actually

cruel.

avoidance is my measure
I sing with razors
in my pocket, blooms
not for you
not for you

desperation is being in
a constant state of prayer,
stuck in thinking I
lost the thought race and
now I’m lodged on Pluto

the burnt lullabies
turned into spoons and
continue to feed us
rotten soup

the daily dining, the
sordid feast of bones
flaying
browning in the plains

in graying child’s hair, I wander
in gin soaked skin I wander
in the fetid husks of dreams,
I wander

when she howls, I must
lips and teeth become
blood jewels on our skin

but when skin behaves like paper then
it’s time to move on
and seek our thrills
in the cove behind the grave

we knew more when
we had less to see

“Every act has meaning.  Accident is a word born of confusion.” –Agnes Whistling Elk

Some memories are like crude graffiti
some gray in museums
still others, vulnerable chalk on the pavement
all fade
dawn makes no promises
it never has

If you’re afraid of what the night will bring,
or worse, you know
what it’s like to be young and out
of control  
leaving a scent trail of blood and flowers
for the monsters of yesterday to follow
just let them  
the fighting makes me so tired

Rust in the sun until rubies form
cry through the night until you have diamonds
pressure makes us perfect
because it made the cracks that
make us imperfect
fear is ancient, normal, mundane even but
fear is the anticoagulant

Meanwhile, I am very busy
construction’s going on in Hell
disrupted by
random clouds of
revolting, revolving gravity
knocking girders loose
violent vertigo
claiming kingdoms
work horses slide
into black holes
yellow tape flails as
white flags
cranes arch and spark
swing into the dark
silky black tar bubbles,
pops, seals
everything is
untimely interrupted
and later
ungainly speech mocks
the tombstones growing in the lake

Pain is like a good book
so hard to put down
separation of critical
moments crystallize
until everything has a compartment
and no one can touch each other

Decades old daydreams stink stale
like sour seeds in green fruit
lilies could grow out of so much
manure.
Rot bleeds through involuntary walls

The past is sweating,
afraid of what I know